“James, I had tried many ways to improve my Bh but it is still the same. I think everything is fine and I don’t see any problems with my Bh could you please help me out?”
This is what Mr. C from Pahang requested. He is an avid swiftlet farmer and his Bh had been operating since 2009. Till today there are not many nests in it although the Bh is located in a Bird Prime Area. What had gone wrong? Nobody knows not even for me, until these pictures were revealed to me.
As usual when I asked him thru the phone, his reply was “No Problem Everything Seems OK”.
Remember, what I say, “No Smoke No Fire”. How could there be smoke when there is no fire?
There were 3 entrance holes in this Bh, different people have different opinions. For me, I always believe in 1 entrance hole. The reason is it would help reduce the time of adaptation and speed up bird population. Secondly, too many entrance holes would cause movement of air which is disliked by birds. It confuses the birds, especially young birds. With too many openings, it shows that the person is indecisive on the best entrance hole placement.
The External tweeters on each entrance hole will confuse the birds, especially new visitors. Often, you could see them flying in from one of the entrance holes and flying out from the others.
The Bazooka should be placed at the open roof not inside the roving. Too loud of external sound in the roving area would affect and defeat the purpose of internal sounds.
The opening at the Open Roof is small but acceptable. I would prefer a bigger opening.
There is no point of putting tweeters on the plank at the roving. It will baffle the birds making them not to fly deeper. Anyway, by installing planks and tweeters at the roving won’t serve any purposes as the birds would not make nest here because it is too bright and the draught air is too strong.
I wonder is the florescent light is switched on during the night…if it does, this will make it worse. Then what is the purpose of painting the walls black?
There are too few tweeters at the second entrance hole (as the above picture). They should be installed higher not 3 -4 ft from the ground as birds fly 2-3 ft from the ceiling. Some common sense would have helped with this Bh. By observing the bird shit spots on the wall at the second entrance hole, it shows birds are not flying into the nesting areas but circling this area. If it does, the number is small.
The bars have obstructed the birds. Furthermore, the second entrance hole located at a 90dg turn. It needs very experienced birds to handle this flying curve. The bars are not situated at the Open roof or the 1st entrance hole. It is located at the second entrance hole which is darkened by the black paint couple with a 90dg turn. I wonder how young birds could negotiate this turn with small bars at the entrance hole. They could just crash on it.
Furthermore young birds’ echolocation is poor, they have yet to develop good clicking sound that is loud enough for echolocation purposes.
Initially there is an Iron grill. I suppose it is an Auto gate. Poor Bh…the gap between bars of the Auto gate is even smaller. This is a standard design from a consultant there?…poor Bh…..
All the tweeters on the door to the nesting areas are somewhat 2-3 ft from the ground. I wonder whose idea is this. Birds don’t fly this low ..@C#$%#^ my friend!
There are no tweeters on all corners. I just wrote about this in my last post. How could they neglect the most important area in the Bh . All nests...if not all at least 95% of Swiftlet first nest making in a new Bh is built at the corners with tweeters. Now you see why so many Bhs have failed.
Again could someone tell me whose idea is this.........? No tweeters at the corners?
Practically all corners in the nesting areas are purposely left with no internal tweeters. No wonder there are no improvements. After a few years, there are hardly 30 nests in this Bh. Now you see the evidence of “No Smoke No Fire”.
In most cases the owners themselves are unable to discover the underlying problem that leads it to failure. Even having simply basic skills are not applied when building this Bh or rectification works.
My advice is “if you know nothing please don’t do anything”. “If you think you know something still don’t do anything” ok. Unless you are very sure you know what you are doing.
These are the mistakes from the design and tweeter arrangement. I had yet to look into the Micro. I bet there will be tons of mistakes when I do check them out.
It’s proven when someone says “my Bh has got no problem”, chances are there will be tons of problems to be discovered.
Now I am going to come out with a design, tweeter arrangement, etc for Mr. C to salvage this sick Bh. It is understood that this Bh was built by a local consultant there. Poor Mr. C … he had chosen the wrong person. I am not criticizing anyone or trying to bad mouth the consultant but just look at these pictures and judge it yourself. If such Bh is acceptable then all those who read my blog can be consultants.
Good Swiftlet Farming All!
